Word: haig
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...Haig, Weinberger, Clark and top White House officials carried their counterarguments-that the President should get tough with Begin-into the Oval Office in a meeting with Reagan that convened at 10 a.m. Monday, only an hour before the Israeli Prime Minister was to arrive. Recalls one participant: "It was a typical foreign policy meeting-ten guys giving eight different positions." Haig apparently won, but only for the moment. Accounts of what Reagan and Begin did eventually say to each other differ somewhat. Haig and other State Department officials privately stressed indications of harmony; White House aides insisted that Reagan...
...White House, as Haig had hoped, made no public criticism of the Israeli action, although Begin received an extraordinary dose of acerbic reaction when he paid a courtesy visit to Congress. When Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachussetts asked Begin whether Israel had used U.S.-made cluster bombs in Lebanon, despite an earlier promise not to employ those deadly weapons in offensive operations, Begin replied that he did not know. Tsongas found that hard to believe. Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, jabbing his finger at Begin, warned that U.S. support for Israel was eroding. Begin shouted back...
...meeting with Reagan, and in a later private talk with Haig, Begin likewise would not budge on anything. At one point, the White House put out word that the Prime Minister had pledged to refrain from a final assault on Beirut. Haig was furious because he regarded the threat of an Israeli attack as essential to induce the remnants of the P.L.O. holed up in Beirut to negotiate with Israel. The Israeli leader had, in fact, made no pledge. As the fighting continued, Clark, Weinberger and others were arguing with Reagan that Haig's soft-on-Israel approach increasingly...
...meantime, European protests against the pipeline sanctions poured into Washington-including one from Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo of Italy, a country with which the U.S. has no serious foreign policy disputes. As he read the plaints and monitored reports of renewed fighting in Lebanon, Haig grew increasingly morose. By midweek he was again thinking of resigning-not knowing that this was exactly what his adversaries at the White House wanted...
...Haig know that Reagan, who abhors conflict among his subordinates, had pretty much decided to accept his resignation. Until the European trip, Reagan had regarded Haig's volcanic behavior with a kind of uneasy tolerance. But shortly after the presidential party returned to the U.S., Reagan agreed with key aides that the frictions had become insupportable. White House aides insist that there was no plot to get Haig; in fact, they thought that it would be best if the Secretary of State stayed on until after the November congressional elections. So Reagan would not directly ask Haig to quit...